


to light this whole town

by thewondersmith



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 15:03:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewondersmith/pseuds/thewondersmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Maxine plays match-maker, Sam gets picked on, Jody smashes the patriarchy, Owen is terrible, Simon is terribler and Zoe is the terribleist. Also I guess Jack and Eugene make out or something, WHO EVEN KNOWS at this point. Spoilers for everything up to the S2 season finale, and it especially helps if you've played side missions 14 and 18.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to light this whole town

**Author's Note:**

  * For [electricchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricchicken/gifts).



 

  
_There are luxuries we can't afford_  
 _But in our house we never get bored_  
 _We can dance to the radio station that plays in our teeth_ [x  
  
](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKqFxA2mp54)

* * *

 

“And now, dear listeners, we have an announcement. A PSA, if you will.”

“I think announcement’s just fine, actually.”

“A PSA announcement?”

“Unnecessary. That’s like saying PIN number.”

“What’s wrong with saying PIN number? Everyone says PIN number.”

“Jack.”

“Oh. Oh! Right, yes. Uh-- so- as much as we’re loathe to leave you, listeners, I’m afraid you’ll be without us this time next week. Eugene and I are going to be taking the day off to celebrate our four month anniversary.”

“Jack has a very loose understanding of appropriate anniversaries to celebrate.”

“Hey! Excuse me for being a _romantic_.”

“That’s certainly one way of putting it.”

“Anyway. We’ll be leaving you in the capable-yet-somehow-still-unfulfilling-hands of our New Canton co-hosts. I know, I know; they’re hardly a fair substitute, but give them a shot. Sometimes off-brand crisps are better than no crisps at all, right?”

“... You know Phil and Zoe can hear us, right? Just because they’re not on air right now doesn’t mean they can’t still hear us on their radio.”

“Ah.”

“You forgot how radios work again, didn’t you.”

“Kidding! I was kidding. Stop looking at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.”

“Yes you are! Listeners, I want to assure you that Eugene _is_ in fact looking at me like that. All _smug_ , with his _face_ , and his eyes and--.”

“Very articulate, Jack. Practically Wildean. How about a song to distract you from the unending torment of having to work with me?”

“... Yes. You pick this time. It better be a good one.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

 

* * *

 

 

To the surprise of exactly nobody, it takes Maxine less than three hours to ambush everyone in the mess hall. Sam’s half-way through his pickle and peanut butter sandwich, and to his credit, doesn’t actually choke when she slams her hands down against their table with the determined look of an eighties’ motivational speaker and says, very seriously, “We need to throw Jack and Eugene the best goddamn four month anniversary they’ve _ever had_.”

Simon, who’s sitting closest to Maxine, jumps a little at the sudden impact. Next to him, Jody muffles a laugh into her glass, and across from her, Janine shakes her head, suddenly incredibly interested with the contents of her plate. “Alright, Bones, alright,” Simon says, slouching back into his seat. “You’re running on fumes again. When was the last time you even ate?”

“This morning,” Maxine replies. Her eyes are-- Sam can only describe them as glazed. “Or last night. Can’t remember. I’ve been busy.”

She nudges Sam over to take her usual spot beside him. He’s still got a mouthful of sandwich, so he can’t really bring himself to protest when she reaches over to steal one of his dinosaur nuggets, but across the table, Sara rolls her eyes and pushes herself up, gesturing to the serving area.

“I’ll grab you a plate then, shall I?” she says. Sam isn’t entirely sure how she manages to convey both amusement and pity, though honestly, he’s too grateful to Sara for rescuing his nuggets to feel all that embarrassed. Maxine glances up at her for a moment, before finishing off her mouthful and grinning.

“Thanks, Eight. So are you guys in? You heard them on the radio earlier, right? An anniversary. C’mon, it’ll be fun! We could make it a whole thing.”

Sam, seeing a distraction, starts to inch his plate away from Maxine, though it doesn’t stop her from reaching over again to steal another one of his nuggets. A T-Rex this time, he thinks to himself. Those are his favourite.

“A whole thing?” he says, brushing crumbs off the front of his hoodie. He wonders if it’d be bad form to rap Maxine over the knuckles with his fork. On one hand, she is a doctor, and his best friend, but on the other hand... “Who even celebrates four months of anything anyway?”

“Please, Sam,” Simon says from across the table. “This is coming from the guy who made everyone watch the Red Dwarf pilot on the anniversary of its air-date. You’re looking a touch obsidian yourself there, pot.”

“Hey, Red Dwarf is a pop culture icon, I’ll have you know.”

“Nerds,” Maxine says, leaning uncomfortably close to Sam’s plate again, and okay, he loves her like family but there really ought to be sanctions on nugget security. “Quit changing the subject already. We’ve got less than a week to plan, so if you’re going to help, we need to start brainstorming now.”

“But it’s not even really their four month anniversary, right?” Jody says, and smiles at Sam before offering Maxine one of her chocolate biscuits in an attempt to distract her. Lovely Jody, Sam thinks. A true friend. “I thought they’ve been together for ages. They were together even before they got to Abel, weren’t they?”

“Like Branjelina,” Simon says, nodding. “Kate and Will, even. She’s got a point though, Doc. Does anyone even know what Jack was on about earlier?”

“Does it matter? If they say it’s their four month anniversary, it’s their four month anniversary!”

Sara seems to be taking an awfully long time with Maxine’s food. He leans back in his seat and peers over Maxine’s shoulder to check on her; she’s talking to Evan and the plate she’s holding is decidedly empty. As if able to feel Sam watching her from across the room, she glances back at him for a second and grins, before nodding over at Maxine and a blah blah blah motion with her free hand. He’s starting to suspect she had less altruistic reasons for offering to get up.

“C’mon, guys,” Maxine is saying when Sam turns back to the table. “It’ll be great. Jody could catch a hare or a pheasant or something, and we use one of the recipes from that cookbook Eugene’s always talking about. It’ll be cute.“

“Err," Sam says. “I hate to be a wet blanket, but isn’t that kind of an odd use of resources?”

She blinks at him, like she's surprised he’d argue with her, before her shoulders slump a little. “It’ll be good for morale, alright,” she says. “I’ve been working on the anti-zom spray for weeks now and I need something to distract myself or I’m going to go insane.”

He blinks and hesitates for a second before nodding, trying to ignore the rush of heat in his face and ears, and around him, the rest of the table goes sort of quiet too. It’s hard not to notice of the dark circles under Maxine’s eyes, and the faint smell of cigarette smoke clinging to her hair and clothes. The past few weeks have been hard on everyone in Abel; but she's the only one even remotely qualified to work on the spray, and Sam can't even imagine the how crushing that amount of pressure that must be. All he does is sit in a chair all day. The very least he could do is share his stupid chicken nuggets.

“We’ve really got to get you a copy of The Sims, you know,” he says, squaring his shoulders and sliding his plate back over to her, and she blinks at him, surprised. “This obsession with matchmaking is getting a little scary.”

“It’s not matchmaking if they’re already together, Sam,” Maxine replies, though she’s smiling now too, and Sam can’t really bring himself to feel too much regret as he watches her twist the head off the last T-Rex in Abel. “Though if I could trap you in a pool right now, I totally would.”

“Remind me why we allow you near sensitive medical equipment? Or let you GM our Demons and Darkness sessions?”

“Because you keep gluing your extremities to other extremities.”

“That was one time!”

“It was three times,” Janine says from down the table, curling her hands against her mug of tea to warm them. “A case for Darwinism if I ever saw one.”

“Wow, thanks guys,” he says, and lifts his hands with palms facing the rest of the table in mock-defeat. There may or may not be some actual defeat mixed in there, but they don’t need to know that. “Thanks. I see how it is. Gang up on the little guy. Nice.”

“ _So,_ ” Maxine says, and squeezes Sam's shoulder gently in what he guesses is an apology for cutting him off, before letting him go to drum her hands against the edge of the table. “We’re in agreement? We’re going to do something for the guys?”

“Well,” he says. “It would be a really nice thing to do. I’m sure the Major wouldn’t mind, it’s not like we’d be taking too much time out of our day, right?"

Simon and Jody both start to nod, but hesitate and glance back down the table at Janine as if to check with her. She blinks back at them from over her tea and frowns for a moment, before sitting back in her seat with a slightly exasperated huff.

“I don’t know why you’re all looking at me like that,” she says. “I think it’s a sweet idea.”

She gets a collectively raised eyebrow in response, but pointedly ignores it. “And besides, it’ll be good for morale. People like seeing celebrities happy almost as much as they like seeing them miserable, and if I have to listen to five more minutes of Mr Holden moping on about the state of the playground, or the fact that the comms shack doesn’t have curtains, I may have to self-immolate.”

“Janine,” Maxine says, voice hushed. “If I didn’t know any better, you know- medically speaking- I’d say you actually had a heart.”

The rest of the table laughs. Janine sniffs and lifts her chin a little, evidently refusing to dignify that with answer, but Sam’s pretty sure he thinks he saw a smile.

\--

After a few rounds of negotiation on what to call the plan, Operation Abelversary officially kicks off. Sam was personally kind of hoping for Operation Radio Romeos, but Sara makes her way back to the table just in time to cast her vote for “literally anything that doesn’t sound like an awful Steps song.” Sam kind of thinks this is unfair on a whole number of levels- the first being that it was a Keisha St Cloud track, thanks- but before he can protest, the name’s been decided on, and the others are starting to plan their attack.

Sara says that she’ll be able to convince that crazy beekeeper who lives out by the woods to trade some honey, though Sam’s has this sneaking suspicion that she and her Beretta have a slightly different definition of ‘convince’. Simon, predictably, says that he’ll find them lube and maybe a nice box of chocolates. Coming from anyone else, Sam thinks that’d probably sound a bit sleazy, but the offer’s clearly genuine and Simon looks sincerely happy to help.

Maxine says that she’s pretty sure she’ll be able to follow that roast recipe in Eugene’s survivalist cookbook if Jody’s sure she can find them a rabbit (“Sure!” Jody says. “It’ll be good target practice, I’m getting a little rusty”), and Janine says that she’ll “ensure that their location is secure.” To the untrained ear, this might sound kind of ominous, but Sam likes to think he knows Janine well enough by now to know that she probably just means “arrange a Do Not Disturb sign for Jack and Eugene’s tent” rather than “have snipers covering the perimeter”.

Actually, he better double-check that. He’s never one hundred percent sure when it comes to Janine.

(She’s been a little… well, brittle, for lack of a better word, ever since Eight crawled out from the ocean, back from the dead and maddeningly vague as ever. He knows Janine and Eight were close, or at least as close as either of them were capable of being, but there's this weird tension in the air between them that seeps into everything they do and say. Makes it hard to be around either of them.

He suspects it’s not just Eight, too. Van Ark was never supposed to be able to breach Abel's walls; those walls were supposed to be a constant, they were supposed to represent safety. Sure, they've been rebuilt, but the place is still a scar, and he supposes that it's no wonder Janine's a little more tightly-wound these days. Abel might be their home now, but it's been Janine's home for years. And sure, okay, he’s pretty sure she’s going to verbally backhand him into oblivion for bringing it up, but Janine’s his friend, and she’s the only thing that keeps this town running, sometimes, and if she’s not okay then none of them are.)

“Sam?" someone is saying. "Earth to Sam. Samwise. Sambo Number Five. Hey.”

“Huh?”

Simon’s snapping his fingers in front of Sam’s face when he refocuses, and the rest of the table’s looking at him like his parents used to whenever he’d accidentally lapse into English in front of them, this mix of amusement and faint disappointment.

“We’re not boring you, are we?”

He shakes his head quickly, reaching his hands up to tug on the drawstrings of his hoodie as he tries to ignore his ears burning.“Oh. No, sorry. Spaced out for a second there. What were you saying?”

“We were asking you what you were thinking of doing for Jack and Eugene?”

The tips of the drawstrings feel like they’re starting to fray a little. He hesitates for a moment before shrugging as he winds them around his index fingers. “Uhm. I guess I could help cook something?”

There’s a pause, then, and suddenly everyone’s avoiding making eye-contact with him. Maxine winces a little and sort of fiddles with the rim of her cup, and Sam lets the drawstrings go, wondering if he should maybe be offended.

“Sam,” Maxine says, clearing her throat. She’s using her doctor voice. “I don’t think that’d be such a good idea.”

Yes, he decides. He definitely should be offended.

“Why not? I can cook!”

Across the table, Sara raises an eyebrow and looks pointedly down at his near-empty plate. “You’re worse than my boys," she says, flatly. "You eat like a drunk four year old cooking for a pregnant woman.”

“I’m--” he starts, and then stops when she raises the other eyebrow and tilts her head at him, not unlike a bird of prey, or maybe a Cylon. “Okay,” he says. “That’s a good point. But just because I don’t like to waste food, that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to cook. I cooked heaps when I was at uni!”

Simon and Jody don’t look especially convinced, and Janine looks about as skeptical as she always does, but beside him, Maxine hesitates for a moment before shrugging and knocking her elbow against his gently.

“Well, I guess an extra set of hands in the kitchen can’t hurt. Maybe you could even sweet-talk the folks over at New Canton into trading with us? Someone over there might have a nice bottle of wine, and I'm pretty sure Five's ready to make that run again.” She pauses for a moment and then, very deliberately, waggles her eyebrows at him. “You know. If Sam asks them nicely.”

“His weapon _is_ his voice,” Simon says, solemnly, and since Sam can’t kick the only medical professional there, he feels fairly justified in kicking Simon instead. Simon winces a little before laughing and flicking a pea off his plate at him, though he misses completely and the pea ends up landing in Maxine’s hair. She sighs and wrinkles her nose at him before shaking it loose.

“You really are an awful shot, you know,” she says, and then smiles. “So it’s settled?”

The rest of them nod; some of them enthusiastically, some of them a little more resigned. Actually, that’s mostly just Sara, but Maxine doesn’t seem to mind. She beams at them and puts her hand in front of her in the middle of the table, looking at all of them expectantly. Simon and Jody both look at each other for a moment before laughing and covering Maxine’s hand with their own, and it takes Janine and Sara another couple of seconds more before doing the same.

“You are _such_ a dork,” Sam tells her, placing his hand on top of the pile, but Maxine just laughs at him and counts to three before throwing all of their hands back up into the air.

“Go team!”

* * *

 

Team work has never been Janine's speciality.  
  
It's not that she isn't fully capable of working within a group; she knows it's not possible to keep a whole township running on her own, and she's grateful to everyone for their help. It's just-- people don't always do what you expect them to. They're an unknown variable, and that makes her nervous sometimes. She likes being able to be prepared. You don't stand a chance if you're not prepared.

Really, it's not even that she _dislikes_ being around people, even though she's fully aware of how the others must see her. Stiff, prickly, kind of boring. Good old reliable Janine. She knows how surprised they all were that she'd agree to help with their anniversary plan, that it must seem out of character for her to dedicate resources to something frivolous, but what they don't know is that she understands the importance of distractions like these. People need to have things to look forward to and even if it does kind of sting a little, she can't really bring herself to be all that insulted. 

Sam, on the other hand is apparently mortally wounded; he's still in a huff about the others making fun of his cooking, though Janine suspects he’s probably more bothered by them ribbing him about Five. If she’s honest, she still doesn’t quite understand Sam’s relationship with his runners. She would’ve thought Sam would have realized after Archie, after Van Ark’s attack, after Chris, after Alice, and all the Fives before her, that getting attached to people on the front line was a bad idea. Apparently not.

He’s sitting across from her, cross-legged and on the floor, wearing expression that looks like it’d be more appropriate on a seven year old. “What exactly is it about fairylights that gets them so tangled,” he says, glowering at the pile of lights in front of him. “Is it like, the same thing that happens to headphones? Is there some sort of tiny gremlin who just goes around to peoples’ houses, tangling everything? It’s not like these lights have been used in a while, right? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe if you spent more time untangling and less time complaining, you’d get it done faster.”

He opens his mouth and then shuts it again, settling back with an expression a little too close to a sulk for Janine’s comfort. They’ve been at this for a while now, slowly (emphasis on slowly) but surely untangling the lights she’d pulled from her family Christmas box in the attic, and she has to wonder exactly why she agreed to let Sam help her in the first place. She genuinely does enjoy his company, and she appreciates how much support he’s given during Abel’s rebuilding efforts but goodness, it’s like he’s allergic to even the slightest bit of quiet.

She does feel a little bad though, for snapping at him. These really _are_ awfully tangled.

They sit there in silence, with only the faint sound of rustling plastic between them, but it’s only maybe a minute or two, before Sam shifts and clears his throat. “So get this,” he says, and well, that quiet may have been awkward, but it was nice while it lasted. “I was talking to Roman and Amber, right, and apparently this anniversary Jack and Eugene are celebrating? It’s actually for the first time Jack cleaned up their tent without being asked. Can you believe that?”

Janine blinks and raises an eyebrow, considers this information for a moment before shrugging. “Positive reinforcement is generally preferable to negative, Mr Yao,” she says, but Sam just looks at her like she’s speaking in Latin.

“Are you sure you’re not a cyborg,” he says. Janine knows that he’s mostly joking but it’s still a little insulting. She loops another string of lights around her hand and frowns.

“Well,” she says. “If you associate the act of cleaning with something positive- in this instance, an anniversary- wouldn’t it stand to reason that you’d enjoy the act more? And therefore, you know.” She shrugs. “Clean more?”

Sam just squints at her, before shaking out a particularly difficult knot. “Huh,” he says after a moment. “Does this mean you’d throw me a little party every time I cleaned up the comms shack?”

“Yes,” she says, matter-of-factly, and sets the lights down neatly in their box. “But given your track record of choosing to work in your own filth, I haven’t made any plans for that. I’d be happy for you to prove me wrong, you know.”

He just laughs, which isn’t exactly the reaction she was hoping for, but then again, it _is_ Sam. He sets his newly untangled lights down carefully in the box between the both of them, and grins, before dusting his hands off on his jeans.

“So what are these all for, anyway? I mean, I get what they’re for, but where are we going to put them?”

“I haven’t quite decided yet,” she says, setting her own loop of lights down on top of his. He makes a surprised sort of sound, which she ignores in favour of leaning down to pick the box up, tucking it against her chest to hold it steady. “I was thinking about putting them up around Jack and Eugene’s tent. I’m pretty sure I’d be able to fashion a switch for them so they’d be able to turn them on and off if they wanted, and these lights aren’t overly bright. They’re quite pretty, really. It’d be romantic.”

Sam blinks and just sort of stops for a second before nodding emphatically. “It _would_ be romantic,” he says, like he’s taken aback by it, and Janine wonders if she should maybe be insulted by the implication that this is out of character for her.

“The trick is to get them out of their tent long enough,” she says, adjusting her hold on the box, and waves Sam off when he offers to carry it for her. “Ideally this would be a surprise to the both of them but I’m not a hundred percent sure on the logistics yet.

“Man,” Sam says, still sounding more surprised than he should be. “It’ll be like a heist. Bam, in’ out before they even notice. Abel’s Eleven.”

“I’m… not entirely sure I’m familiar with that reference.”

“It’s--. Nevermind,” he says. He pauses for a second before glancing down at the box again. “Are you sure you don’t want me to carry that?”

“I’m _fine_.”

It comes out harder, more defensive, than she means it to, and she feels her stomach twists a little with guilt as his face falls. The box feels like it’s starting to slip, and she adjusts it before opening her mouth to apologize, but before she can say anything, he’s clearing his throat and fiddling with the drawstrings of that threadbare hoodie he always wears.

“Hey, uhm,” he starts, and then makes a face, apparently dissatisfied with the way his voice sounds. He clears his throat again. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, actually. How are--. How are you doing?”

She blinks and sort of stops for a moment before tightening her hold on the box. She doesn’t realize that she’s doing it until she feels the corners of it start to dig into her ribs a little, and she glances down at its contents, at the neat, white loops of plastic and glass, and frowns.

“It’s just, you seem kind of tired these days,” Sam is saying. “I know it’s been a really, _really_ crazy time for everyone, but I just wanted to make sure you were holding up okay. I--. We worry about you.”

He stops, makes this odd little aborted motion with his hands, like he wants to reach over and take the box from her, and she tightens her hold on it on reflex.

“I’m fine, Mr Yao,” she says, and her voice sounds smaller than she’d like it to, but if he notices, he doesn’t show it. “I’m fine. I really am. I can handle it. Thank you though.”

He looks genuinely surprised again for some reason, “No problem,” he tells her, and then smiles that ridiculous, lopsided smile of his. “You know I’m always around if you need anyone to talk to, right?

“I'll keep it in mind."

She knows she sounds dismissive, but it's still apparently enough for him, because he just keeps grinning at her before ducking forward to hold the door open. She smiles back at him, though the expression always feels kind of strange on her face, and blinks when he squints at the box she's holding.

"Janine," he says thoughtfully. "How long do you suppose those lights are?"  
  
She raises her eyebrows. "I wouldn't have a clue. I suppose maybe twenty, thirty meters?"

"Do you think you might have more stashed somewhere?"  
  
She stops in the hallway and adjusts her hold on the lights, and he's still grinning at her, like he knows something she doesn't.

"I... suppose," she says slowly. "They're still in storage though, and we'd have to untangle those, too. Why?"

"Hm," he says. "Okay, bear with me, but I think I've got an idea."

 

* * *

 

Contrary to popular belief, Zoe’s not _actually_ heartless.

She knows that Phil and the others like to see her as some sort of reverse Manic Pixie Dream Girl, where the sole purpose of her existence is to crush the hopes and dreams out of everyone around her, but honestly, she just has an exceptionally low tolerance for the saccharine. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t like things. She still like kittens, and holding hands, and long walks on the beach, and ironically deconstructing cliches. She’ll even admit (albeit not loudly or in front of anyone) that it’s sort of sweet that Phil would A, save champagne despite it being the literal end of days, and B, graciously send that champagne all the way to Abel just because a couple of his friends decided to celebrate what is quite possibly the most ridiculous anniversary on the planet.

Perhaps graciously isn’t the right word.

She feels a little sorry for the Abel runner Eugene sent to meet them; they’ve been stuck here for the past half an hour listening to Phil go on about the quality of the champagne and the importance of serving it cold, and in the right glass, and if she knows Phil at all, she’s fairly sure that look on his face means he’s not about to let go of the bottle any time soon. The runner’s expression, on the other hand, is this funny mixture of boredom and desperation, and usually she’d be happy to just let Phil blither on until he ran out of steam, but watching the runner’s face as Phil talks is kind of like looking into a mirror.

“Phil,” she says, finally, and the runner’s shoulders sag with relief. “Give the nice runner the bubbly already. I’m sure they have places to be and zombies to slay.”

Phil blinks and looks down at the bottle in his hands, as if surprised he’s still holding it, before nodding with this long-suffering sigh. “Like a baby, okay?” he says as he passes the it over, with one hand on the base and another on the neck. “Don’t shake it. Treat it like a baby. Carry it like a baby. And keep it cold.”

“Like a baby?”

“Exactly,” Phil starts to say, but stops and huffs at her once he catches on. His cheeks always puff out a little when he does that, and Zoe wonders what he’d look like if she were to draw chipmunk teeth on him. “Zoe, don’t be ridiculous.”

The Abel runner just blinks and stares at the both of them for a long moment before shaking their head slowly and shifting to tuck the bottle, very carefully, into their backpack. Phil nods in approval as he watches, as if observing the passing of the Olympic torch, or presiding over a coronation, and she just barely manages to keep from rolling her eyes at him.

“What?” Phil says. “At least I’m doing something nice for them. Unlike you, you killjoy.”

She considers the best reaction to go with here. Mock-outrage is always fun in small doses, and Phil really does get amazingly defensive when put on the spot, but she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him faced with uncomfortable earnestness.

“I’m doing something nice too, Phil,” she says, finally, widening her eyes as she looks up at him. He looks genuinely surprised, and squints at her for a second, before his eyebrows knit together in a frown.

“What, really?”

She blinks again instead of answering, slower this time, and bites the inside of her lip to keep from grinning at Phil’s flustered little exhale.

“And what are you planning on doing, exactly?”

She shrugs, just as slowly- no, slower, even- and in the corner of her eye, she can see the Abel runner’s mouth starting to twitch too with the effort to keep from laughing. “Like I’d trust you with that information,” she tells him. “You’re the biggest gossip in the New Canton.“

“I am not!” he says, his cheeks turning pink in indignation. “I’ll have you know that I take secret-keeping very seriously.”

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“Prove it. Prove that you’re trustworthy.” She folds her arms over her chest and tilts her head. “Keep a cyanide tablet behind your teeth at all times and swear on your mother’s life-- no, on the Queen’s life-- that you’ll bite down if you’re ever compromised. Do it. Right now.”

“I’m--. Zoe, don’t be mental, I’m not going to do that.”

To their right, the Abel runner clears their throat and shifts their weight from foot to foot a little awkwardly, and when she turns back to them, she finds that they’re watching both she and Phil like they’re amazed anyone’s allowed them to talk to people, let alone grant them access to broadcasting equipment. Which is fair, she supposes. It’s been months now and she still hasn’t quite figured out why anyone put Phil in charge of the station to begin with. The wonders of bureaucracy.

“I’ll start the show at six forty-five,” she tells the Abel runner, who relaxes visibly when they realize she’s actually being serious. “Make sure they’re back at their tent by seven, alright? Eugene already knows the schedule, but-- you know. Just in case.”

The runner nods and-- God, _salutes_ her, which would be kind of innocuous coming from anyone else, but coming from them, it really does seem like an unreasonable amount of sass. Then again, Zoe does have to admit that she appreciates their reticence. The last runner Abel sent their way was cute, in preppy, girl-next-door kind of way, but good Lord was she chatty, and that is definitely not a problem they have with this one.

“Start what at seven?” Phil says. His voice is verging on nasally, like it always does when he’s frustrated, and Zoe just leans back into her seat a little more to watch the way his ears turn pink. “Zoe, start what at seven? What’s the big secret? Zoe. _Zoe_."

The Abel runner, bless their mismatched cotton socks, seems to realize that this would be an excellent time for them to leave. They duck out with a quick wave, slinging their backpack onto their shoulders again, and Zoe grins and waves back at them before looking back up at Phil, who’s starting to turn a little purple.

“I’m sorry, Phillip,” she says, before he can start up again. She kicks her boots up to rest against the edge of their desk, and from the sound Phil makes, you’d think he’d been punched in the throat. “If I told you that, I’m afraid I’d have to kill you.”

 

* * *

 

They’re an hour and three zombies into the hunting expedition when it finally occurs to Owen that maybe he should stop volunteering for these missions just because the cute Yankee doctor does that thing where she bats her eyelashes at him and squeezes his arm. It’s not like there’s a shortage of hot girls in Abel anyway, even if there is a shortage of literally everything else. And Owen’s not entirely sure, but he’s got this funny feeling that maybe that doctor could be a dyke or something. He’s got an instinct about this sort of stuff.

At the very least, he should stop volunteering for runs when he’s going to be partnered up with Jody, which seems to happen a whole bloody lot for some reason. Everyone keeps going on about how sweet and easygoing she is- hell, Simon seems to think she’s the bees’ knees, if that dopey look on his face is anything to go by- but Owen doesn’t really see it. She hasn’t spoken a word to him since they stumbled across that shambler hiding in the long grass half an hour ago, opting instead to stay a few meters ahead of him, and Owen can’t help but feel like maybe he should be taking this personally.

He supposes he doesn’t really mind the view, though. She might be stuck up, but she’s got a great little arse.

It’s almost noon now, and hotter than it has any right to be given the fact that they’re smack bang in the middle of England. Why is it that it rained almost every single day while he and his mates were backpacking through the UK, and yet the second the end of the world hits, it’s all blue skies and sunshine? He thinks there might be some poetry to that, but he’s too fucking hot to give it much thought. His shirt’s starting to stick to his back with sweat, and his headset keeps slipping off his ears, and even though he can see the woods up ahead, they somehow don’t seem even the slightest bit closer than they did half an hour ago.

“Hey, Sam,” he says, readjusting his headset for the fifth time in as many minutes. “I know I just asked, but you’re sure there isn’t like, a shortcut to this place, right? Also, remind me again why we’re doing this? I thought we were actually doin’ okay on food for once.”

“No, Six,” Sam says. He sounds a mite flustered; that Janine chick is probably hovering around again. Bloody middle management. “There’s no shortcut to the woods. It’s just-- a road. One road. That you’re currently on. No shortcuts. And, err- I think you’re about to lose Four?”

Owen blinks and glances up again; Jody’s a full fifty meters ahead of him now, which just seems like an unnecessary amount of distance. If she can hear them, she doesn’t acknowledge it. He really should have just offered to switch gigs with Simon. At least the bloke likes Jody, and besides, hospital duty means he might be able to guilt a fag off the doctor if he does a good enough job.

“Shit, thanks Sam,” he says, pushing his headset up over his ears again and loping forward to try and catch her. It really is unreasonably hot. His backpack straps are starting to dig into his shoulders, and he’s pretty sure there’s a stone in his shoe. Sydney would be cooler this time of year.

“Oi, hold up! Christ, for someone with such stumpy little legs, you can really move, huh?”

Sam makes a sound that’s kind of like a cross between a hiss and a choke, but before he can respond, Jody’s suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. He doesn’t expect it, and staggers a little, clipping her shoulder by accident as he lurches to a standstill. She’s glaring at him when he finally straightens himself up, her face pinched and sharper than it really should be, and for a second, he thinks she might be seriously considering using him for target practice.

“What.”

“What do you mean, what?” he says, maybe just a touch out of breath. “I just wanted you to wait up, ‘s all. There’s no point in us running together if we’re not actually together, you know?”

She stares at him for maybe half a second more before shaking her head and starting to head back up the road again, her ponytail bouncing as she jogs. “It’s not my problem you can’t keep up,” she says. “Sam, how are we doing on the zombie front?”

“You’re all clear, guys,” Sam says, and Owen can practically hear the wince in his voice. “Just keep moving, you should be there in no time.”

“That’s what you said ten minutes ago!”

“I swear to God,” Jody says, cutting them off. “If you say are we there yet, I’m going to shoot you in the knee.”

Sam goes a little quiet, then, and Owen pulls a face at the back of Jody’s head before huffing out a breath and picking up the pace a little. Her eyes are fixed on the woods ahead, her jaw tight and her shoulders tense. She kind of looks a bit like those comic book chicks his little brother used to love. He can’t help but think that she so much prettier if she just smiled.

“So,” he says, adjusting the straps of his backpack as he jogs beside her. “What’s the deal with this little field trip anyway? I thought we were actually doing alright with food. Is there a shortage or something?”

“We’re fine,” she says. Her voice is clipped and her eyes haven’t left the road ahead of them. “This is for Jack and Eugene’s anniversary. The area around here’s good for hares, and if we’re lucky, and if you’re especially quiet, we might even catch a grouse or two.”

“What’s a grou--. Wait. Anniversary? What, are those two _gay_? Are they fully hitched or something?”

She blinks a couple of times, her pace starting to slow a little, before glancing back at him. “Are you serious?”

“Are _you_ serious?”

“Err, Six,” Sam says. “They’re, uh. They’re exceptionally hitched. Full ball n’ chain , those two. We thought we’d might like to do something nice for them since it’s been kind of a rough year, and Eugene’s a bit of a foodie, you see, and we were thinking of doing this recipe, only with rabbit instead of… I’m babbling. I’m babbling again, aren’t I.”

“Yeah, little bit, mate.”

Beside him, Jody’s staring at him like he’s dacked himself, and he raises his eyebrows at her before shrugging. “What? I didn’t know. It’s not like they sound gay, you know?”

“Oh my god, you’re a Neanderthal.”

She starts moving again before he can think to respond, like just being around him mortally offends her or something, and through his headset, he hears Sam exhale.

“Just keep going, guys. You’re almost there, I promise. The place looks clear of zoms but keep an eye out anyway, okay?”

Up ahead of him, Jody’s starting to put more and more distance between the both of them. He watches her run for a moment, her strides sure and steady, and wonders if he’s ever going to feel that at home in a Runner’s uniform as she looks. Somehow, he can’t quite picture it.

Still, this place is home, for now. He puts one foot in front of the other, readjusts his headset again, straightens his back.

“Got it, Sam.”

-

The air’s finally starting to cool by the time they finally hit the treeline, and it’s sort of beautiful, in a weird, foreign kind of way. It’s not like the woods themselves are all that different to Australian bushland, but the smells and sounds are different. It’s a little like deja vu, or watching a familiar movie when you’re stoned- everything looks the same but feels off- and he’s a little surprised to find that it makes his chest ache with something strangely similar to homesickness.

Jody’s still giving him the cold shoulder, which is honestly kind of a dick move at this point. It’s not like he’s done anything wrong; he’s always been friendly to her, hell, more than friendly, but every attempt at a conversation he makes gets shut down within the first three syllables. Even that Janine chick seems to like him more, which is kind of like receiving validation from a cactus. Maybe he just reminds Jody of an ex-boyfriend or a dead relative or something, but it’s not like that’s his fault. There’s no reason for her to be so stuck-up.

She’s only a couple of paces ahead of him now, having slowed down once they hit the forest. She’s got her bow and arrow out, all ninja-like, and part of him is a little worried that maybe she doesn’t really know how to use that as well as she thinks she does. He’s a nice guy, though, so he’s obviously not going to say that. They’re a team, for whatever fucking reason, and he’s got to be supportive and sensitive to whatever she’s got going on.

“Okay,” he says, sidestepping a couple of branches blocking the path. “I gotta ask. You on the rag or something?”

She stops, turns. Her face is very, very pink for some reason. “Excuse me?”

“It’s just- you know, if your hormonally compromised or something, maybe we should head back?”

“Hormo--. Hormonally--. Are you _for real_?”

He blinks and raises his eyebrows. And then he raises his hands, because Jody is suddenly got that dumb little bow and arrow situation pointed straight at his balls.

“Hey, woah, hey- hey. How about you aim that somewhere other than my goolies, yeah?”

“Do you have _any_ idea how unbelievably insulting that question is,” she says, voice tight, and her aim hasn’t shifted in the slightest. Her ears have gone all pink now too, her mouth pulled down into an ugly frown, and when Owen opens his mouth to protest, she cuts him off with a glare and draws the arrow back a little tighter.

“Woah, Four!” Sam’s voice says into their headsets, faint static crackling at the edges. “I leave you two alone for five seconds, and-- Jody, why on _Earth_ do you have that pointed at Six?”

“Cutting it a little close there, Sam,” Owen says between gritted teeth, but Jody still hasn’t made any move to drop her aim, and her eyes are narrowing in a way that suggests she isn’t planning on it for a while.

“Don't you dare,” she says. Her knuckles are white and the air is very cold against the back of his neck all of a sudden. “Don’t you dare try to brush this off. You’re not clever. You're not charming. You don’t even deserve to wear Maggie’s number, you knuckle-dragging _prat_.”

Her voice cracks a little, and in any other instance, that might reassure Owen, but she looks like she’s either going to shoot him or cry. Jesus does he wish he’d picked Thailand for his gap year like all his other friends.

“Four,” Sam says. His voice is all funny, like how people talk when they’re trying to convince nutters to come down off high rooftops. “Don’t be silly, alright? This isn’t like you. The Major will--”

And that’s when Jody lets the arrow fly.

The sound it makes when she lets it go is nothing like anything he’s ever heard before, nothing at all like what he’s seen in movies. He goes numb. He’s pretty sure he screams. It takes him a second before he realizes he’s got his eyes squeezed closed, and maybe a couple of seconds more for him to work up the guts to look down at the mess the crazy bitch has made out of his babymaker, but when he finally opens his eyes, the arrow’s-- it’s-- it’s nowhere to be found? The _fuck_.

He glances back up at Jody, who’s staring past his shoulder at something with this tight, funny little smile on her face. He’s vaguely aware of Sam in his ear asking if he’s okay, his voice high and tinny, like it’s coming from far away, but he can’t seem to make his mouth work enough to reply. When he turns, still shaking, to see what Jody’s looking at, he sees this small, brown hare maybe a twenty meters away, its little body stuck clean through with the arrow

“Holy shit,” he hears himself say. He turns back to face her, opens his mouth and then shuts it. “Holy _shit_ ,” he says again after a minute. “You bloody _legend_.”

She blinks at that, as if surprised, and finally looks back at him. Her cheeks are still flushed pink, but her face is bright and holds none of that tension it did a couple of seconds ago, and he thinks to himself, maybe this is what everyone else sees in her.

“Well, make yourself useful then,” she says, nodding past him back at the hare again. Her voice is still all weird and clipped, but it’s almost like there’s a smile there, curling at the edges of her words. “Go grab him for me, will you? And be careful not to damage my arrow.”

“Ah,” he says, and hesitates for a second before clearing his throat and rubbing his palm over the back of his neck to try and work some feeling back into the tips of his fingers. “We might have a problem here, Katniss. I’m… not entirely sure I can trust my legs to get me over there. I think I might have just peed myself a little bit.”

She blinks and wrinkles her nose, before smiling at him, which is… wow, yeah, that’s definitely a first. How did he miss the fact that she had dimples?

“That’s disgusting,” she says, adjusting her grip on her bow. “And I’m more of a Hawkeye person, really.”

“Hawkeye?” He blinks. “Isn’t that a bloke, though? Why would you want to be a _guy_.”

He grins back at her, but blinks and stops when he notices her shoulders slump. That tightness at the corners of her mouth is back, and the warmth in her face is gone, and it’s like looking at a whole new person.

“Nevermind,” she tells him, voice flat. “Go get the hare already.”

 

* * *

 

“You know, Doc,” Simon says as he finishes wiping down and sterilizing the last batch of test tubes for that afternoon. “I really don’t understand why you’re so gung-ho about setting Owen and Jody up. I’m all for Clover getting laid, but Owen? Really? Isn’t he a little...”

Maxine, par for the course, barely glances up at him before turning back to her lab notes. She’s been at this for hours now, hunched over her desk, all poor posture and barely adequate reading light- she really should invest in a standing desk, he thinks, but she’s also highly particular about her work space, and he knows better than to try and suggest that again. “A little?”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, but he’s a bit of a twat, isn’t he?”

“A what?” She huffs out a laugh and looks back up at him for a second before grinning and pushing the hair out of her eyes. “Simon, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were jealous.”

He makes an affronted sound and reaches over for a cloth to dry off his hands. “I’m not jealous! You know know I’m a strong advocate for everyone having the very best orgasms possible, but Owen just seems a bit-- immature?”

“This is coming from the guy who wants to give Jack and Eugene a whole thing of Astroglide for their anniversary present.”

“That’s not immature,” he says. “If anything, that is highly mature and considerate and thoughtful. You’re the doctor here, you should know that lubrication’s important when it comes to--. Well. You know.”

He considers illustrating his point by making the gesture with his thumb and forefingers, but she just laughs again and nods, before pushing herself up, rolling her shoulders a little and wincing when they pop. “Oof. Yeah. Fair point. Good luck finding any around here these days though. Really puts the dry into dry spell.”

“Okay, you’re either delirious or you’ve been possessed by a spirit of a twelve year old boy. Either way, I’m loving it.”

“You love twelve year old boys?”

“ _Maxine_ ,” he says and presses a hand over his heart, all feigned outrage. “You need a break. Come on, let’s go get you some sunshine. You’re turning into me, you need to photosynthesize.”

She grins at him and shakes her head before scrubbing her palms over her face, and Simon watches her for a moment before smiling and reaching across to tug on the lapel of her lab coat. She bats at his hand gently, but lets him pull her up, covering a yawn with the back of her hand.

“You really don’t think Owen and Jody’d be a good match?”

“Ah,” he says, steering her towards the doors. “How do I put this delicately. Err. _Fuck_ no?”

“Mm. Maybe I should try setting him up with Janine instead.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

She laughs again and shoves at his shoulder gently, and he grins back at her before ducking out of the lab, switching the lights off behind the both of them. The air’s warmer than he expects it to be, but still cooler than it was indoors, with a faint breeze coming in from the west, and he hums as he stretches his arms up over his head. Beside him, Maxine squints into the sunlight, shielding her eyes with a hand and patting the pockets of her lab-coat with the other to find her lighter.

“In all seriousness though,” she says, settling back against the wall beside the doors. She fishes her lighter out from her breast pocket and shakes it a little, and Simon barely resists pulling a face. “I know it sounds kind of creepy and inappropriate but lube really would be a good present for them, you know? It’s honestly getting really difficult to locate any these days. Condoms too. Might be a good time to organize another med supply run.”

She pats her pockets again absently, and sighs in relief before producing an old, beaten-up pack of cigarettes, and even though he knows it won’t make the slightest bit of difference, Simon can’t help but make a face this time.

“Don’t you start,” she tells him, lighting up. “I get that enough from Sam and Janine as it is.”

“Well, you can’t really blame them, you know.” He moves a little to avoid standing downwind from her, and settles back against the wall. The sun-warmed bricks feel strangely reassuring against his back, and beside him, Maxine tips her head back and pockets her lighter again. “Those things’ll kill you, but hey, what do I know. You’re the medical professional here. I’m just your Igor.”

She blinks and raises an eyebrow at him, before grinning and leaning in to elbow him gently. “Passive aggression isn’t a good look on you, Simon.”

“Everything’s a good look on me, darling," he says, and nudges her arm down. "We’re just worried about you, that’s all. After all that fuss about not using carcinogenic paints, you’re seriously going to light up?”

She shrugs a shoulder and takes a drag. “It’s the end of the world. And we’re out of Xanax.”

“Mm.”

He watches her for a moment more before shaking his head a little and settling back against the bricks again. Coming from her, he supposes that resignation makes a funny sort of sense; of course she’d believe in an inevitable end, she’s a doctor, she’s seen more death than anyone else in this entire town. It doesn't seem fair, though. She's worked her fingers to the bone for them; she deserves to stay. People like her deserve to stay. People like her deserve to know that there’s a way out -

\-- but then again, he supposes there’s no reason for people like her to worry about the end, not really. She’s a good person, she helps people, her soul's as spit-shiny clean as a human soul can possibly get these days. It’s probably never even occurred to her that Hell could possibly be an option.

It probably never occurred to Archie either.

“You know, if we’d met before the outbreak, I’d have to hold you down and make you eat that cigarette, right?” he says after a minute. The smoke curls over their heads, and the wall is rough under his fingers. He tries to focus on it, on the physicality of it. Centers himself in his own body. Still alive, he tells himself. “It’d be for your own good.”

“Oh God,” she says, and laughs. “You know my parents actually tried that on me once? They caught me smoking when I was nine and made me eat the whole cigarette right there on the spot.”

She exhales slowly, before reaching a hand up to try and wave the smoke away from his face, and he blinks and grins at her before ducking back a little. “Didn’t work, obviously. That probably should’ve been their first red flag. It all kind of went downhill from there, honestly.”

“Oh, yeah. I bet you really disappointed them with the whole, ‘college, med school, doctor’ shtick. Honestly, Maxine, how could you. You’re an absolute animal.”

She just laughs again and scuffs her shoes against the cement under their feet absently. “You should’ve seen me as a teenager. Animal’s putting it lightly.”

“Really. Do tell.”

“Let’s, uh. Save that story for later,” she says, before offering him her cigarette. “You sure I can’t tempt you?”

“I think they call this peer pressure,” he says, and grins back at her when she leans a little closer. “No, thanks. Body’s a temple and all that.”

“Suit yourself.”

They settle into a companionable silence as Maxine finishes off her cigarette, and when Simon tips his head back against the bricks again and closes his eyes, it almost feels like how it did before the world fell apart. The sound of the township around them, of people living their lives, it feels… it feels normal. Feels like home, in a way that the house he grew up in never did.

“You know,” Maxine says beside him, and when he opens his eyes again, she’s staring across town at the gates, brows pulled down into a slight frown. “I haven’t told anyone this yet-- I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up-- but I really do think we’re getting pretty close to cracking the anti-zom spray.”

His mouth goes dry. He stops breathing.

“Are you serious?”

He isn’t quite able to keep his voice steady, but Maxine doesn’t seem to notice, and her expression’s so hopeful and so open when she turns back to face him that it kind of makes his heart hurt a little to look at her.

“Yeah,” she says. “I am. I really think we’re getting close to beating this thing. It’s kind of surreal to think this might all be over soon, isn't it?”

His palms are starting to prickle with sweat, and he wipes them off on the back of his jeans in an effort to distract himself from it. “Wow,” he hears himself say. Then: “Wow. That’s incredible. How much longer do you think it’ll take?”

She blinks and grins, before shrugging a little and curling her fingers against her mouth absently, like she’s worried even saying the words’ll ruin it.

“A couple of weeks at most, I think. Your help has been-- it’s just been really phenomenal, Simon. I really couldn’t have made it this far without you.”.

And just hearing that is kind of like being physically hit- worse than being hit, even- and Simon has to look away, has to step back away from her a little. His head’s starting to spin, like it does when he's been running for too long, and he inhales, exhales, presses his palms flat to the wall behind him to keep himself steady.

“Wow,” he hears himself say again.

“Yeah,” Maxine says. “Wow.”

They stand there for a moment, silent, and it almost feels like gravity is shifting. He wants to bolt. He wants to tell her everything. He wants to tell her Paula's as lovely as she said she is, that he's sorry, that he was scared and stupid and selfish, and that he'll fix it. They’re so close and she’s worked so hard and he thinks maybe, just maybe, it’s not too late to turn back. There’s a chance they’d forgive him, that they’d understand, that if he turned on Van Ark now, even though it’s been months now and people have died, he’d still be able to redeem himself.

But he doesn’t do anything. Of course he doesn’t.

Instead, he just curls his fingers by his sides, rocks forward on the balls of his feet before rocking back again. The breeze carries the sound of music from the quad, and it feels cool on his face as he leans back against the wall.

Inhale.

Exhale.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he says, finally, and his voice is steadier than he expects it to be. “If by some miracle, I can somehow find Jack and Eugene the last tube of KY this side of the Atlantic before their anniversary, you, Doctor Maxine Myers, have to quit smoking. There’s no way in hell you’re going to save the world only to die from lung cancer.”

She blinks at that as if confused. Cocks her head for a moment and just looks at him, and for split second, he wonders if she sees it, sees what his mother saw before she left, all the lies upon lies upon _lies_ , written all over his face. But then she’s slapping him on the arm and laughing, the sound a little raspy around the edges from the smoke, and he remembers his grandmother and the way her voice sounded like escaping steam as she gripped him by the chin and told him that the only thing he was ever good at was hurting people.

“Okay, wow,” Maxine says, holding a hand out for him to shake. “That’s practically Faustian. You’ve got yourself a deal.”

And it takes him maybe half a second to steel himself, but he manages to grin back at her when he takes her offered hand, shaking it with as much exaggerated solemnity as he can muster. Little tendrils of tension are starting to curl at the back of his throat, and he swallows them down, like he always does. Her skin feels like it's burning everywhere he touches her; he forces himself to hold on until she pulls back.

“Good,” he says, and slips his hands into pockets again. The ground still feels a little unsteady under his feet, but it’s getting easier and easier to just smile through it. He wonders what that says about him. “You’re on.”

“Oh God, you’re going _down_ ,” she tells him, still laughing. Her smile is so bright, and she is so beautiful. “You’re so dead, Simon.”

 

* * *

 

She loves a lot of things about Abel.

 The people, obviously, and the sense of community; she's made more friends working the clinic than she ever did in all of her years in college. She has a purpose here, and an opportunity to help people, to really help them. Even the buildings have a certain charm to them. They always seem to be in a perpetual state of reconstruction, like things are good but could be better, and Maxine loves that about the town, too. 

The thing she loves most, though, is the way it's callused her hands again. They feel right for the first time in years.

Her hands got soft during med school, and even softer after, and she could never quite shake the feeling that they belonged to someone else, that she was just occupying a role for a while and that those rough edges'd show eventually. She'd met Paula after she lost that coarseness to her; had tried to explain that she wasn't as soft as her hands made her seem, that there were things that Paula wanted that she just wasn't cut out for. Paula'd tried to understand, but the thought of working the ground was totally foreign to her. It was times like that when she'd think of Lou, of being sixteen, hands burning from working in the fields of her family's farm; Lou's mouth pressed to the rough tips of her fingers to soothe them. All of that seems like such a long time ago.

Abel's farm is nothing like her family's, but in a way, she's kind of glad for that. 

She doesn't get to spend much time there these days anyway, or any time outside the hospital, really, but whenever she has a free moment, she likes to head down to the vegetable patch to work. It feels good to sink her hands into the earth again, to smell like loam and green things instead of disinfectant. She still remembers the best way to till the soil, the best way to remove weeds; grip at the base, drag it up slow to pull out the root, just like her daddy taught her. It's easy to lose herself in the physicality of the work. Afterwards, she likes to trace the changing planes of her palms, watch as her body builds its own armor. She wonders what Paula'd think of her now.

A couple of feet away, Sam plucks another another cherry tomato off the vine, his jaw set in concentration to keep from accidentally tearing the soft, fleshy stem, and she smiles as she tilts her head to watch him. He'd practically leapt at the opportunity to help when she mentioned that she was going to be working in the garden to gather up the rest of the ingredients. They're lucky almost everything they need is in season.

"That's good, Sam," she tells him, and he blinks up at her from over his basket, before grinning and pushing the hair back out of his eyes. It's hot, _way_ too hot to be wearing a hoodie, but he doesn't seem to notice or mind.

"Thanks," he says, and shifts to tip the tomatoes he'd been holding in his shirt out into his basket. "This was a really good idea, you know. I think Jack and Eugene are really going to appreciate this. It's been ages since we've had tomatoes that aren't from a can."

"Exactly what I was thinking. It's always nice having having an excuse to throw a fancy dinner party, right?"

"Yeah. We really should do this more often."

He grins at her again before shuffling further down the row, brushing the dirt off the cuffs of his jeans absently. She smiles back at him, watches him work for a moment before turning back to her own patch; feels the sun against her shoulders, the sweat tricking down the back of her neck. It's easy to forget about all the tests she still has to run, all of the reports she has to file. She thinks about telling Sam about the spray, about how close they are to finally turning the tide, but the soil is cool under her hands, soft as she curls her fingers through it, and she finds that she doesn't really want to think about any of that at all here.

The future's not certain, never certain. But out here in the gardens, surrounded by the seeds of things still yet to grow and with nothing but the sky above them, she knows deep in her gut, in her DNA, that nature always finds a way of balancing the scales.  
  


* * *

  
Eugene suspects he may have created a monster.

 Jack's been ranting about- well, enthusiastically critiquing-- their breakfast earlier, which was cute for the first maybe two minutes, but they've finally hit the edge of Abel's gardens and Jack's _still_ going. “All I’m saying,” Jack says, making his way over to their favourite tree, “is that they shouldn’t call it Eggs Florentine Friday when the integrity of their florentine is so questionable. That's false advertising, that is.”

“Are you _seriously_ complaining about the fact that we have eggs for the first time in two months?”

“ _No_ ,” Jack says, and if he rolled his eyes any harder, they might just pop right out of his head. “Obviously not. _You’re_ the food critic here though. Did that look like any sort of florentine you’ve ever seen?”

Eugene has to laugh at that, because, well, _no_ , it was really more of a mayonnaise and broccoli situation. It feels ungracious to say so out loud though, so he settles for just nodding and taking Jack’s hand when he offers it, joining him to settle in the shade. “I think they’re probably more concerned about alliteration, honestly.”

“Why not Fondue Friday then?” Jack says, tugging Eugene closer beside him. “Or-- Frittata Friday? Fried Rice Friday? _Fry_ day?”

“Hey, if you're such a big shot, why don't you volunteer for kitchen duty more.”

“Kitchen duty? _Kitchen_ duty? Oh, that's rich. Anything to get me barefoot and pregnant, huh.”

“Damn. Yep. You got me.”

 Jack tips his chin up a little and grins back at him, before leaning up to press a kiss to Eugene’s shoulder, and Eugene finds himself leaning into it, resting his temple against Jack’s head.

“It’s been a good day,” Jack says quietly, voice a little muffled against his skin, and Eugene has to agree with that, too. The day really _has_ been surprisingly nice, despite their mishap at breakfast, and Eugene’s initial misgivings about missing a whole twenty four hours of work. Turns out Abel _isn’t_ going to fall without them on the radio. They'd both woken up late that morning, which is a novelty in and of itself; Eugene can’t remember the last time he slept for more than six hours at a time. Jack had gone down on him too, while they were getting dressed; he'd backed Eugene up against the edge of the bed, his hand on his knee and the other on his belt buckle, his mouth flushed red as he'd smiled up at him, and-- okay, maybe _that_ isn’t a novelty, really, but it’s still one hell of a way to start the day. Even his leg isn’t giving him too much trouble for once.

The sun’s starting to set, catching on the roofs of the buildings around them and turning everything gold. When he looks out towards the gates, he can see the damage is still there, still visible, but it doesn’t do anything to distract from how quiet and still the place feels. Beside him, Jack’s a familiar weight against shoulder. His hand’s warm against Eugene’s wrist, and Eugene thinks to himself that maybe this is what people mean when they talk about contentment.

“Hey, Jack?”  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“I’ve been wondering, and… it’s not I don’t appreciate it and everything, because I really do, but why _did_ it take you so long to clean up the tent before?”

There’s a moment’s pause before Jack shifts a little to face him, and in this light, his hair looks blond. He reaches an index finger up, traces the curve of Jack's ear, before tucking his palm against the back of Jack’s neck again.

“I dunno,” Jack says, leans back into Eugene’s touch. “I guess--. I guess I still sort of figured that we’d have to pack up and start moving again eventually. We’d been on the road for so long and every time we’d find somewhere that seemed safe enough to stay, something’d happen and we’d have to move, and--.”

He stops and shrugs, and Eugene blinks a couple of times before tightening his hold on the back of Jack’s neck.  
   
“But we’re safe here now. You know that, right? Nothing’s going to happen to us here. There's no way anything's going to breach those walls again.”  
  
Jack laughs, the sound quiet even in the small space between them. “I know, Eugene. I think I realized that four months ago. Figured if we were going to be staying here, I might as well make the place look nice, you know? Make it feel like home.”  
  
Eugene blinks again. There's a funny little lump in his throat that he can't quite name; he tries to swallow around it. “And you’re okay with that?”  
  
“What do you mean, am I okay with it?”

He holds still as Jack moves a little to press his face against his shoulder, his hand curling in the hem of Eugene's shirt.  “Of course I’m okay with it,” Jack tells him, voice muffled. His breath is warm. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Jack’s hair smells like cheap soap, and he wants to press his face into it and breathe in. “Jack,” he says instead. “You know if--. If you want to try and find your family, I’m not going to--.”

He stops when Jack cuts him off with a kiss. It’s sweet, like it always is, though the angle isn’t quite right and he ends up catching Eugene on the chin more than anything else, but Eugene gets the hint and tilts his head down a little to make it easier for him. Jack’s mouth is warm like the rest of him, but soft in a way that’s still somehow unexpected, even after all this time, and Eugene can’t seem to help the funny little sound he makes at the back of his throat.

“I know,” Jack says, after he pulls away. His voice is low and determined, like it was after the fall, when Eugene was mindless with pain and bleeding out from his mangled leg. Stay awake, Jack had said, over and over. His face had been so pale, and his eyes had seemed so blue.   
  
He hesitates for a second before shifting his hold on Jack to brush his thumb over Jack’s jaw. He’s almost always regrets bringing up either of their families- Jack looks so wounded whenever he thinks of them, like the thought of it physically hurts, and it might make Eugene a coward, but it’s somehow, it’s always easier to talk about these things in the abstract, or when it’s too dark to see that look on Jack’s face. The stubble on Jack’s chin is rough under Eugene’s thumb; he feels Jack tighten his hold on his shoulders for a moment before tilting his head toward Eugene’s hand, his mouth pressed to the backs of his fingers.

“I know,” Jack says again, his voice still quiet, and Eugene doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until Jack tips his face against his palm and exhales. “And when this is all finally over, I’m going to find them. I’m going to find them and we’re going to be safe. I can feel it. I’m going to find them.”

(And that small, awful, petty little voice-  the voice that tells him not to bother with his physical therapy, that even getting out of bed is pointless, that reminds him, every single minute of the day that there’s a whole part of his body that is missing- can’t help but wonder what it must be like to have so much faith in something that Jack can’t see or touch or prove. But what if they’re all dead, it says. Logically, it makes much more sense that they wouldn’t have survived. And even if they did survive, there’s nothing to guarantee that they’ll still be alive by the time it’s all over.

And there’s nothing to guarantee that it will ever be over, not really.

And even if he finds them, then what? He’ll leave. He’ll leave, and you’ll be alone.

He'll leave, and you’re never going to see your family again.

He'll leave, and Canada’s a whole continent away.)

“Gene?”  
  
He closes his eyes and presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth; the words sit behind his teeth, like they always do, but he swallows them back, pushes them down. Jack’s warm and solid in his arms, his hand anchored at the hem of Eugene’s shirt, and Eugene can’t ever remember wanting to be this close to someone before in his life.

“I’ll be there,” he says, finally. He sounds… surprisingly sure to his own ears, but the words feel right in his mouth. “I’ll be there when you find them."  
  
"I know," Jack says a third time, like it's just that simple for him. "I never thought you wouldn't be."

They sit there until the sun finally sinks behind the hills, the air getting cooler as the sky turns purple, and then indigo. It takes more willpower than he expects it to sit himself up again, but as loathe as he is to move, he knows that it's almost seven, that Zoe'll be waiting. 

“Jack,” he says quietly. “Did you maybe want to start heading back?”

Jack blinks and tilts his head up at him for a moment before smiling, and Eugene watches him as he pushes himself up, dusting his jeans off. He takes the hand Jack offers him to help him up, shifting his weight forward as he leans into his crutches again.  
  
"Sure."

\--

They’re maybe half-way back to the tent when the lights start.

Eugene doesn't notice them at first, too busy concentrating on keeping his crutches steady against the gravel under their feet, but he stops when Jack gasps audibly, a hand on Eugene's arm and another pointing at the path in front of them. They kind of look like fireflies, tiny little sparks of yellow light flickering into existence to light up the path to the housing block, and as they get closer, they can make out their own tent, glowing gold, brighter than they've ever seen it.

“Oh, _wow_ ,” Jack says, hushed, and lets go of Eugene's arm after a second to curl his hand in the back of his shirt instead.  “Eugene, did you do this?”

“What?” he says, and his voice is just as breathless as Jack's. “Man, I _wish_. This is incredible.”

And it really is. It's beautiful. A couple of their neighbours are starting to leave their own tents, intrigued by the glow, and he squints a little, trying to see if any of them look like they might have set it up, but they all look about as confused as he feels. Beside him, Jack ducks down for a second to investigate a cluster of lights by his feet, before springing back up again, and Eugene can’t help but laugh at the look on his face.

“They’re fairylights,” Jack says, amazed. “Someone put fairylights in the grass, Eugene.”

“And in the trees,” Eugene says, pointing, and Jack’s eyes widen as he spins around to look.

“And in our tent!”

There's a pair of kids from a couple of tents down who've come out to investigate the lights, and they laugh when they spot Jack's flailing. Eugene ducks his head to hide his grin, though he knows it's too dark to see anything properly, and tugs on Jack’s arm. “C’mon, dummy. I think people are starting to stare.”

When they finally make their way back into their tent, it nearly knocks the breath out of him. The place is flooded with gold, the lights strung up around the ceiling of their tent illuminating everything, and Eugene finds that he just has to stop and stare for a moment to take it all in. “Wow,” he says quietly, adjusting his hold on his crutches to steady himself. “I thought the guys might have planned something, but I had no idea they were going to go all out.”

“You  _knew_?” Jack says, and it takes him a second to tear himself away from the lights to look up at Eugene. “I thought you thought the whole anniversary thing was a stupid idea!”

His expression is somewhere between indignant and thrilled, and Eugene can’t help but feel like that’s an exceptionally good look on him. He tips forward to press a kiss to Jack's mouth, adjusting his hold on his crutches to keep himself steady, but that seems a little moot when Jack grabs him by the collar of his shirt and drags him down to kiss him back, slow and sweet.

 "You're a bloody _jerk_ ," Jack tells him, voice muffled against his mouth. "God, just--. Go sit down for a second, okay?"  
  
Eugene nods, a little dazed, and he's pretty sure he must look as dopey as he feels. Jack lets him go after another quick kiss, this time pressed to his forehead, and Eugene watches him for a moment before heading over to their bed to sit himself down. Jack's rummaging through one of his bags, frowning in concentration, but grins when he finds whatever it is he's looking for.

"Okay," he says, straightening up and tucking his arms behind his back. "Close your eyes."

Eugene raises an eyebrow, but Jack just keeps looking at him expectantly, so he does as he's told and holds out a hand. He can hear Jack inhale, a little shakily, before something hard and cool is pressed into his palms, and he can hear the nervousness in Jack's voice when he clears his throat and says, "Okay. You can open your eyes again."

He blinks a couple of times, his eyes still not quite used to the amount of light in their tent, before tilting his head down at whatever's in his hand. It's a picture frame, he realizes; one of those cheap, faux-wood deals, but when he turns it over, he finds a pencil sketch of the both of them smiling, with Eugene’s arm is around Jack’s shoulders. Eugene’s jaw’s a little more square than it is in real life, and Jack’s hair is shorter, and he’s pretty sure Jack’s tattoos don’t actually cover his whole arm, but despite all of that, but they’re still very recognizably them. When Eugene looks a little closer, he realizes that Jack’s drawn him wearing the shirt he had on the first day they met, with the mud stain on the cuff of his left sleeve and everything. He didn’t think Jack was even sober enough to remember that.

“I wanted us to have something to put on our desk at work,” Jack says, moving to sit down beside him. “People always seem to have photos on their office desks in movies and TV and stuff, but it’s not like you can just pop down to the store to get your photos developed these days, right? And we don’t have a printer to print them ourselves, and so I thought I’d…”

He gestures to the picture, his face is getting steadily more pink as he talks. His fingers pick nervously at the hole at the knee of his jeans, and when Eugene glances back up at him, in this light, he looks almost painfully young. “It’s dumb. It’s dumb, isn’t it? I couldn’t get your nose right.”

“Jack,” Eugene says, and covers the back of Jack’s hand with his own. Jack’s shoulders inch up a little on reflex, and he’s still not looking at him, but Eugene knows him well enough by now that he wasn’t really expecting him to. “I love it. It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Jack’s skin is flushed warm when he leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and he holds still for a moment before leaning into it, winding an arm around Eugene’s shoulders.

“You’re welcome," he says."I’m really, really glad you like it.”

 Eugene just holds him for a second, with the picture frame in one hand and his other hand curling in Jack's hair, and it's easy in moments like these to forget that he's missing a leg, that he's about as far away from home as he's ever been. Jack buries his face in the crook of Eugene's neck, exhales slowly, and Eugene squirms a little at the tickle of it before laughing.

"Okay," he says. "Let me go? I've gotta get your present too."

"You got me a  _present_?" Jack says, sounding about eight years old, and Eugene laughs again, tries to ignore the flutter of nerves behind his solar plexus. 

"Of course I did, dummy," he says. "You didn't really think I was going to drop the ball again, did you?"  
  
Jack just beams at him and shakes his head, and Eugene squeezes his shoulder gently before pushing himself up to reach for the radio beside their bed. He hopes that he's timed it right (he really should invest in a watch or something), and it takes him a moment of fiddling with the dial before he finds the right frequency, tuning in just in time to catch the last few bars of _A Day After Tomorrow._

"Another Waits classic," Zoe's voice says. She sounds as unenthused as ever, but Eugene’s got at least half a dozen ROFFLENET messages from her that suggest she's way more into this than she seems on the radio. "And if you’ve just tuned in now, welcome to Jack Holden's Very, Very... _Very_  Important Mixtape. We'll be playing you only the best Jack Holden approved tracks, so don't touch that dial. Seriously. Don't touch it. I'm going to be here all night and by God, you  _will_ stay up with me.  
  
Eugene grins and starts to turn back to Jack to explain, but then Jack's throwing his arms around his shoulders, nearly bowling him over, and he has to tighten his grip on the photo frame to keep from dropping it.   
  
"Oh my God," Jack says, voice muffled and tight against his neck. "You bloody bastard. I can't-- I can't believe--  _how?"_  
  
Eugene laughs, finding it a little hard to breathe in a way that has both nothing and everything to do with how tight Jack's holding him. “I made a mix for you," he says, tucking his chin against Jack's hair. "I sent the tracklisting to Zoe over the ROFFLENET so she has the order and everything. Should last for the whole night.”  
  
"The _whole_ night?" 

“Well. At least until she has to sleep. Which, as science will tell us, is never.”

When Jack pulls back to look at him, he's still just staring at him, all wide-eyed, like he can’t quite believe what he's hearing. Eugene starts to feel that familiar tickle of self-consciousness at the back of his throat, starts to wonder if maybe this was overkill, but then it's knocked clear out of him as Jack wraps his arms around him again, burying his face into his shirt. 

“Thank you, Eugene,” he says into the fabric. His voice sounds tiny, and even though Eugene's face is starting to ache a little, he can't help but just keep smiling.

“You’re welcome. Happy anniversary.”

Jack just makes this funny little noise into his shirt and squeezes him a little tighter, exhaling shakily as the opening bars of _I’ll Shoot The Moon_ crackle through the speakers. Eugene considers reaching over to better tune the radio, but that would involve letting Jack go, which, honestly, isn’t likely to happen if he can help it.

“Mm,” Jack says, shifting to press his face against Eugene’s neck. “How’d you even get these tracks over to New Canton? Isn’t Zoe always complaining about how small their music collection is over there?”

Eugene laughs and nods, before carefully setting the picture frame down on the box they use as a bedside table. “I sent Runner 5 over with one of our spare USB sticks. Honestly, it’d be good for Phil and Zoe to have access to something other than the Vengaboys and that one Conor Oberst album.”

“Oh, I dunno. Kind of sums them up, really, don’t you think?”

“Harsh.”

Eugene grins and nods before opening his mouth to reply, but before he can, someone from outside the tent clears their throat

“Err,” they say, and-- yeah, okay, that’s definitely Sam. “Knock knock?”

“There isn't a door, you don’t have to _say_ knock knock, you know,” another voice says, and Eugene’s _definitely_ sure that’s Maxine. “Hey guys," she says."Sorry if we’re interrupting anything. Can we come in?”

“ _No_ ,” Jack says, loudly, but Eugene just laughs again and swats him on the shoulder before pushing him back gently.

"Yeah guys, come in. What's up?"  
  
Maxine sticks her head into the tent for a second, as if to check that they're both decent, and grins when she deems them presentable. Then she, and Sam, are stepping into the tent, with these platters of--  _something_ , and Eugene blinks, his mouth suddenly watering as the smell of fresh bread and roast vegetables fills the tent.

"Oh man," Jack says, already up and half-way across the tent to help them with the platters. "What is _this_?"  
  
Eugene watches them all for a second before reaching over to clear some space off their make-shift table to make room for everything, and Maxine grins at him before setting one of the trays down. She waits until the others have been set down too, along with knives and forks, and plastic cups, before lifting the cover off their plates and beaming. 

"So," she says. "Given that it's your four month tentaversey, which we _all_ know is a very important one, we figured we'd try and make you dinner. We followed that recipe from Eugene's book- you know, the roast rabbit?"  
  
Eugene feels his jaw go slack, but he can't seem to bring himself to care. Beside him, Jack is practically vibrating with excitement, his face shining. “Oh my God, guys," he says. "This looks fucking amazing. God, _look_ , Eugene. Roasted carrots. And look! Tomatoes! And bread rolls. Guys-- thank you. Thank you so much.”

"But wait, there's more," Sam says, and presents the bottle he'd been hiding behind his back with a flourish. "Ba-ba-ba-da! Champagne! All the way from New Canton, courtesy of your, uh-- friend? Phil Sorry about the cups, we figured we'd better not risk trying to transport glass all the way from the kitchens."  
  
Eugene and Jack just sort of stare at each other, and Eugene's kind of glad that Jack looks about as overwhelmed as he feels. His chest feels all tight again, his face flushed, and he can't remember the last time he felt so-- so completely--. God, he doesn't even have the words for it.

"I'm--" he says, and then just stops and shakes his head. "I can't believe you guys went to so much effort. Thank you. Seriously. This is unbelievable."

Maxine and Sam exchange this look that Eugene can only describe as a mental fistbump. Then Sam blinks, slaps himself on the forehead like he's just remembered something, and ducks of their tent for a moment before reappearing with something held tightly in his arms. Maxine looks down at whatever it is for a second before laughing, and Sam’s face flushes pink as he grins at them again.  
  
"There’s also a, uh, a gift basket from all of us. Well, it’s more of a gift bucket, all of our baskets were already being used, but-- here.”

He adjusts his hold on it for a second before holding it out to them, and Jack leans forward to take it, his eyebrows inching up at the weight of it.

“Woah, what's in here?"  
  
"Uhm," Sam says, and Eugene isn't a hundred percent sure but he thinks Sam's ears are starting to go red. "Just bits and bobs. Private stuff. Secret Radio Abel business."

"Secret Radio Abel busi-- Sam, is this  _honey_?"

Maxine just laughs, looping her arm through Sam's and nudging him gently, before gesturing back towards the tent flap behind them. "We're going to leave you to it, I think. Have a great night, you guys. Happy anniversary again."  
  
"Woah, woah, wait," Eugene says, reaching for his crutch to push himself up again "Aren't you guys going to join us? You put so much effort in, the least you could do is eat with us."  
  
They both look at each other again for a moment before they shaking their head and smile. "We're good," Maxine says, and Sam nods a little and sticks his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. 

"We're really glad you like everything," he says. "Enjoy, okay?"

The both turn to start making their way out, and Eugene just stares at them, still a little overwhelmed, before shaking his head to try and clear it. "Hey," he says, making his way over to them. Hold up for a second."  
  
They both look a little surprised when he adjusts his hold on his crutch to wrap a hug around their shoulders, and Maxine laughs when Jack bounds over to them, throwing his arms around the both of them too. 

"You guys are the greatest," Jack says, beaming, and squeezes all of them as tightly as he can without hurting them. Eugene just nods, blinks a couple of times, before clearing his throat.  
  
"Thank you," he says, and if his voice breaks just a little, he supposes none of them are going to hold it against him. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."  
  
  


* * *

 

" _Well_ ," Maxine says to him as she loops her arm through his, following the path of lights back out of the housing block. "I don't know about you, but I'd say Operation Abelversary was a success."  
  
"Are you kidding? Did you _see_ those faces? It was like Christmas, but  _better_. I'm pretty sure Eugene was about to start crying."

"Yeah, it's a good thing we left when we did," she says, and laughs. "We should definitely do this again, though. Maybe we could do it for Janine and Simon? They're a thing, right?"  
  
"You're unstoppable," he says, grinning. She leans into him a little, her hand warm against his wrist as they walk together, and grins back at him as he squeezes her arm gently. "I mean-- we absolutely _should_ , but maybe let's not go completely bonkers this time, yeah?"  
  
"Oh, like you didn't have fun," she says, and... well, yeah, fair. He laughs and nods to concede the point, and she beams at him, punching the air with her free hand in victory.   
  
"Maybe I'll actually be able to  _help_ next time," he says, and she blinks and tilts her head. "You know," he continues. "Instead of just getting in everyone's way?"  
  
"What are you talking about?" She sounds genuinely confused now, and even in the low light, he can tell that she's frowning. "You helped plenty. You helped me with that meal, hell, all of this?"  She stops to wave a hand at the lights around them, and then nudges him with her elbow. "This was all you. Janine told me it was your idea."  
  
He blinks at that, surprised, before ducking his head a little. "Oh," he says. "I mean--. Technically, she came up with the idea first. I just kind of extrapolated it."  
  
Maxine just stares at him for a moment, the light catching on her hair and shoulders, before laughing.  
  
"God, you're a dork, huh. No wonder I like you so much."

He doesn't really know what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything, but he figures that's okay. Maxine's smiling at him like she wouldn't want to be anywhere else, and around them, the town is glowing. The air's cold enough to sting his lungs as he draws in a breath, and as he looks out into the darkness, he realizes that it doesn't bother him as much as it used to; that it doesn't feel as overwhelming or as inevitable or as ubiquitous. The lights around them aren't nearly enough to illuminate the dark; they're just tiny sparks, really, like pinpricks, but that's enough, he thinks. All they need is a little bit of light, just the tiniest spark, and they can make their way through anything.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lovely thischarmingand/electricchicken, who requested: 
> 
> "In season two radio mode Phil and Zoe mention they are holding down the Radio Cabel fort for the evening while Jack and Eugene go on a super romantic date to celebrate their... uh... anniversary of the first time Jack cleaned their tent without being asked.
> 
> Tell me how this came about! What prompted the tent cleaning? How did all of Abel's runners end up devoting a bunch of their time to tracking down champagne and romantic dinner accoutrements for our favourite radio hosts? 
> 
> The date itself would be lovely as well, but I am just as — if not more — interested in all the shenanigans involving the rest of the township that lead up to this."
> 
> A HUGE thank you to Emma, Ebba and English for holding my hand whilst I RAILED AGAINST THE WINDS during the writing of this fic. Also for brainstorming with me, and patting me on the head and for generally keeping me on task so I'd actually write the thing. You guys are the greatest and I really wouldn't have been able pull this off without you, so seriously, thank you. And a big thank you to Andrea, too, for putting this exchange together! It was a blast and I really hope you enjoy it ♥


End file.
